Synchronized counterrotary engine



'Oct. 14., 1969 H. J. SAVOIE, JR 3,472,210

SYNCHRONIZED COUNTERROTARY ENGINE 3 Sheets-Sheet 2 Filed Sept. 29, 1967W 120 M! Qlwwg, '47 7619445 345.

United States Patent US. Cl. 123-42 9 Claims ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSUREAn internal combustion engine having intermeshing rotors on parallelshafts, one of said rotors having peripherally spaced combustionsockets, the other having peripherally spaced lobes located to mesh withsaid sockets with predetermined clearance between lobes and socketsduring such meshing, each of said rotors being mounted coaxially with asimilar, synchronizing rotor, the lobes of the synchronizing rotor beingadjustable so as to maintain contact with the sockets of the oppositerotor during meshing whereby to maintain said clearance between thelobes and sockets of the first named rotors; and means to cool the lobesand sockets of said first-named rotors.

This invention relates to internal combustion engines of thecounterrotary type in which lobes on one rotor mesh with sockets onanother in the manner of gear teeth. The lobe entering the socketeffects compression, the charge is ignited and the resultant explosionof the charge acts to drive both the rotors. The prior art abounds inexamples of this sort of arrangement which, however, has not heretoforeproved satisfactory in practical use, chiefly, for the reason thatordinary gearing has been relied upon to synchronize the meshing rotorsjust discussed.

The fact of the matter is that meshing rotors of the lobe and sockettype are not gears in the ordinary conventional sense. The profiles ofthe lobes and sockets do not follow the involute or cycloidal profilesordinarly used in generating gear teeth so that mathematically ordinarygearing simply is incapable of functioning to synchronize mating rotorsof the piston and socket type.

Consider only a pair of meshing rotors without regard to power take-offor synchronization. Ideally, the lobe should enter the socket, smoothlycompress the charge in the socket, then under impetus of the explosionwithdraw from the socket without there at any time being actual contactbetween the lobe and any portion of the socket.

To accomplish this absolute ideal probably is a physical A impossibilitybecause of the fallibility of machining methods. By use of thisinvention, however, a very close proximity of this ideal may berealized.

It is, therefore, a primary object of this invention to provide aninternal combustion engine of the counter rotary type in which therewill be minimum contact 'between meshing lobes and sockets.

A further object of this invention is to provide in an engine asaforesaid means for synchronizing the engagement of lobes and sockets insuch manner that no lobe exerts by contact on any socket nor any socketupon any lobe any circumferential driving force, the driving force beingtransmitted directly to and acted upon by the synchronizing means andnot by the actual power rotors.

It is a further object of this invention to provide in an engine asaforesaid adequate cooling means both for the lobes and for the socketsas well as for the casing for such rotors.

It is a further object of this invention to provide in an engine asaforesaid means for adjusting the synchronizing means so as to maintainalways the proper relationships 3,472,210 Patented Oct. 14, 1969 of lobeand sockets in the main rotors; to compensate for wear in thesynchronizing means itself; and so far as possible to substitute rollingfor sliding fraction both in the main rotors and in the synchronizer.

The above and other objects will be made clear from the followingdetailed description taken in connection with the annexed drawings, inwhich:

FIGURE 1 is a perspective view partly in section, showing the generalarrangement of active rotors and the synchronizers;

FIGURE 2 is a central vertical section through the active rotors shownin FIGURE 1;

FIGURE 3 is a section on the line 33 of FIGURE FIGURE 4 is a section onthe line 4-4 of FIG- URE 2;

FIGURE 5 is an exploded perspective view showing certain details ofconstruction of the lobe-bearing rotor; and

FIGURE 6 is a section on the line 6--6 of FIG- URE 1.

Referring now to FIGURE 1, a casing for the active rotors is generallydesignated 10 and is made up of an external side plate 12 which is castto contain channels 14 and 16 for coloring fluid. The casing 10 alsoincludes an interior side wall 18 also formed with cooling channels 20and 22. The side walls 12 and 18 are bolted to a center piece 24 whichcompletes the enclosure of a socket rotor 26 and a lobed rotor 28. Thesocket rotor 26 is mounted on a shaft 30 while the lobed rotor 28 ismounted on a shaft 32.

As shown in FIGURE 2, the center piece 25 has an outer wall 34surrounding a cooling passage 36 and an inner wall 38, 40 curved toconform to the rotors 26 and 28.

The opposite side of the center piece 24 has an exterior wall 42enclosing a cooling space 44 and an interior wall 46 curved to conformto the socket rotor 26 and an internal wall 48 curved to conform to thelobe-bearing rotor 28. At the upper end of FIGURE 2 the external wall 42and the internal wall 46 merge to define an open inlet passage 50. Atthe lower portion of FIGURE 2, the external wall 42 and the internalWall 48 merge to form an open exhaust passage 52 while the external wall34 and internal wall 40 merge to complete the spout 52.

As illustrated herein, the socket rotor 26 has six sockets 54 while thelobe rotor 28 has six lobes 56. The number of sockets, however, need notequal the number of lobes anymore than two meshing gears must alwayshave the same number of teeth. If desired, for example, the lobe wheel28 might be made smaller and supplied only with, say, four lobes 56, inwhich case shafts 30 and 32 would operate at different r.p.m.s. This isa matter, however, for the individual designer and for the function tobe performed by the engine as a whole.

The lobe rotor 28 is made up of a central drum 54 which has in itsperiphery transverse grooves 56 corresponding in number and spacing tothe lobes 58. Each lobe 58, as best shown in FIGURES 4 and 5, ispreferably a cup-shaped casting closed at one end with the other endopening to a groove 60. A transverse groove 62 is formed in the bottomof each lobe and fits a spacer 64 which also fits a corresponding groove56 in the drum 54. Spacers 64, therefore, act as keys between the drum54 and the lobes 58 to assure alignment and rigidity as between the drum54 and the lobes 58. Holes 66 are drilled in each lobe 58 within thearea of the groove 62 and mate with similar holes 68 in the spacer 64which in turn mate with similar holes 70 in the bottom of the grooves56.

As best seen in FIGURE 4, the holes 70 of the drum 54 (except for thecenter hole 70') extend down to the hub of the drum and encounter anaxial bore 72 which is interrupted between the two holes 70 by an insert74. The central hole 70 is threaded to receive a stud 76 which extendsup through the central holes 68 and 66 to engage a nut 78 which servesto secure the lobe 58 to the spacer 64 and thus to the drum 54.

The lobe 58 is closed by a disc 80 which is secured in the groove 62.When the parts are assembled, as shown in FIGURE 4, it will be seen thatthe two open holes 66 of the lobe 58 with the open hole 70 of the drum54, and with the channel 72 and spacer 74 define closed passagewaysthrough which cooling fluid may be circulated from either side of FIGURE4 to circulate completely through each lobe 58.

The sockets 54 and the socket wheel 26 are defined by intermediatespokes 82 cooled by means illustrated in FIGURE 3. In FIGURE 3, eachspoke 82 has a pair of parallel holes 84 drilled through from its outersurface. The holes 84 are connected by a transverse hole 86 drilled fromone side face of the spoke 82 so as to intersect holes 84. The hole 86extends only part Way through the otherwise solid spoke 82 and its openend closed by a plug 88 placed in a bore 90 at the entering surface.Plugs 92 are used to close the holes 84 and then are machined into thesame contour as the radial outer surface of the spoke 84. In a hubportion 94 there is formed a central axial bore 96 into which the holes84 pass. A plug 98 occupies the bore 96. Referring now to FIGURE 1, asingle sparkplug or other ignition device 100 is placed at the point ofthe side plate 12 adjacent the point where the lobes 58 most deeplypenetrate the sockets 54 and where the combustible mixture is under itshighest compression. The result is an explosive force serving to rotateboth the socket rotor 26 and the lobe rotor 28.

It is also to be noted that each lobe 58 has its outermost portionflattened, as indicated at 101, in FIGURES 1 and 2. This has the purposeof providing two sealing edges per lobe operative against or closelyadjacent the Walls of the casing, but not, however, involving any realsurface or pressure contact between the lobes and the casing.

Referring now to FIGURES 1 and 6, the synchronizing is made up of asocket wheel 102 keyed to the shaft 30 and accurately registered withrespect to the power socket wheel 26 and a lobe wheel 104 keyed to theshaft 32 and accurately registered with the lobe wheel 28. The wheels 26and 102 rotate as a unit as do the wheels 28 and 104. The object of thisarrangement is to eliminate all pressure contact or driving contactbetween the power wheels 26 and 28 and to transfer the contact anddriving functions to the synchronizing wheels 102 and 104.

Wheels 102 and 104 are loosely enclosed in a casing 106 which is joinedto the partition wall 18. Ample clearance is provided on all sides ofthe wheels 102 and 104 which may be lubricated by conventional means andwhich require no cooling. The wheel 102 is provided with grooves 108defined by spokes 110 corresponding to grooves 54 and spokes 82. Thelobe wheel 104 is made up of a pair of spiders 112 having legs 114.Bolts 116 pass through the free ends of each pair of spokes 114. Thebolts 116 support a pair of eccentric bushings 118 on which arerotatably mounted lobe wheels 120, the wheels 120 and bushings 118 beingaxially spaced by washers 122, as best seen in FIGURE 6. Theeccentricities of the bushings 118 are oppositely directed and byrotation of the bushings relative to the spokes 114 one of the rollers120 may be made to project slightly on the leading side of its spoke 114while the other projects slightly on the trailing side. This is quiteperceptible in FIGURE 6 but, of course, grossly exaggerated for thepurpose of illustration.

The objective of this construction is two-fold. First, the compositelobes defined by the rollers 120 can be made to fit exactly to thedimensions of each groove 108 with which the lobe is to mesh. The secondpoint is that rolling rather than sliding contact is established by thisarrangement between the lobes and the grooves 108. All pressure andwear, therefore, are transferred away from the power wheels 26 and 28where combustion takes place and the thrust is exercised and occursentirely between rolling surfaces on the low temperature synchronizingwheels. It becomes unnecessary, therefore, to lubricate the lobes andgrooves of wheels 28 and 26, just as it becomes unnecessary to cool thesynchronizing wheels. It should be emphasized again that this type ofsynchronizing has the further advantage that the mathematics of meshingand rotation is exactly the same for the synchronizer as it is for thepower rotors a thing which cannot possibly be true of conventionalgearing used in any attempt to synchronize the power rotors, one withthe other. As a result, there is an immense increase in mechanicalefiiciency as well as very greatly increased machine life and decreasedmaintenance.

The arrangement shown with all of the grooves on one wheel and all ofthe lobes on another happens to be the preferred form. The principles ofthe invention, however, are equally applicable if both wheels were thesame and each wheel alternated with grooves and lobes. With thearrangement shown, as previously noted, there is no need to have thesame number of lobes as there are grooves. A differential can be set upso that the grooves exceed the lobes in number or vice-versa and ther.p.m. of the two shafts accordingly will be similarly differentiated.Other such changes and alterations, no doubt, will suggest themselves tothose skilled in the art. It is not intended, therefore, to limit thisdisclosure to the precise details shown but only as set forth in thesubjoined claims.

What is claimed is:

1. An internal combustion engine of the counterrotary type comprising: apair of rotatable shafts; a pair of intermeshing combustion rotors, onesuch rotor being fixed to each of said shafts; a pair of intermeshingsynchronizing rotors, one such rotor being fixed to each of said shafts,each of said synchronizing rotors registering with and being similar tothe combustion rotor on the same shaft, and means for adjusting at leastone of said synchonizing rotors to assure contact with the other of saidsynchronizing rotors during each intermeshing of said rotors, said meanscomprising adjustable pairs of adjacent eccentrically-mounted rollers onone synchronizing rotor, the other synchronizing rotor having sockets inwhich the pairs of rollers are receivable with substantially rollingcontact.

2. An engine as set forth in claim 1, in which neither of saidcombustion rotors makes pressure contact with the other.

3. The internal combustion engine of claim 1, and wherein said one ofthe synchronizing rotors comprises a pair of spiders with radial legsarranged parallel to each other, said adjustable pairs ofeccentrically-mounted rollers being mounted between the parallel legs.

4. An engine as set forth in claim 1, in which one of said combustionrotors carries only combustion sockets and the other of said rotorscarriers only combustion lobes for intermeshing engagement with saidsockets.

5. An engine as set forth in claim 1, including means for circulating acooling agent through the interior of at least one of said combustionrotors.

*6. An engine as set forth in claim 4, in which neither of saidcombustion rotors makes pressure contact with the other.

7. The internal combustion engine of claim 3, and wherein each pair oflegs is connected by a bolt and wherein a pair of eccentric bushings aremounted on said bolt, said bushings being rotatably-adjustable on saidbolt, said rollers being journaled on said bushings.

8. An engine as set forth in claim 4, including means for circulating acooling agent through the interior of at least one of said combustionrollers.

5 6 9. An engine as set forth in claim 6, in which the adjust- 2,164,4627/ 1939 Lutschg 12312 ment of the synchronizing rotors is confined tothe lobes. 3,323,499 6/ 1967 Gijbeis 123-12 References Cited C. J.HUSAR, Primary Examiner UNITED STATES PATENTS 5 CL 1,240,112 9/ 1917Winger 123-12 123-8 1,440,451 1/ 1923 Ford.

